How the mighty have fallen. Coca-Cola, for so long the unassailable icon of global capitalism, is no longer the most powerful brand in the world. Although, the newly-crowned king of brand awareness isn’t exactly surprising.

Coca-Cola has launched a new print advertising campaign which some have called a “propaganda campaign” in an attempt to reverse declining sales. The ads show the company defending the use of its sweetener, aspartame. The ad reads, “time and again, these low and no calorie sweeteners have shown to be safe, high-quality alternatives to sugar”.

News broke this morning of the largest corporate advertising merger in the history of the industry, bringing giants Omnicom and Publicis under the same roof. But Omnicom counts Pepsi as one of its biggest clients, while Publicis does work for Coca-Cola. That’s the greatest brand war of modern times, right there, in the same house. So, how do they overcome this problem?

There is nothing better than an ice-cold Coke and the Coca-Cola Co in Cartagena Columbia, along with Ogilvy & Mather Columbia, decided to use some fun to get this icy point across. Click through to check out the awesome video.

Sometimes you have to take a risk to get to where you want to be. We have put together five examples that show how some brands took one courageous leap and found themselves catapulted into the history books. Introducing the top five “shrewdest, smartest maneuvers you’ve ever seen in business.”

In March of this year the super-brand decided to go one step further than just making people smile in their “Open Happiness” campaign. How you ask? Oh, just by creating a bit of world peace with a fizzy drink, that’s all. Click through to watch how.

An American ad agency, together with the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, have thrown down the gauntlet to the giants of the soft drink industry with a controversial new three-and-a-half minute video that looks at the health risks of the overconsumption of sugary, carbonated drinks.

International brand consultancy Interbrand released its rankings of the world’s biggest brands yesterday, and there are some interesting shifts to take note of. We’ve already reported on Google being ranked higher than Microsoft, but where do our other favourite brands fall in the world’s top ten?

The rivalry between Coke and Pepsi has been raging for years, each company claiming its own army of celebrity endorsers, sports stars often making up the majority. So what happens when one of these stars drinks from the forbidden cup, like Ronaldhino did at a recent press conference?

Every day, around the world, security cameras silently observe us. Tirelessly they wait and watch, hoping to capture something significant. Usually, the only footage that ever sees the light of day is the kind that implicates someone in a crime or offence, but in reality they capture so much more. Click through for a glimpse of the heart-warming side of surveillance.

But not by Julian Assange. This American Life reports that the recipe was published as a photograph on page 28 of the Atlantic Journal-Constitution newspaper in 1979 as part of an inconspicuous historical piece on the Coca-Cola company, but the small size of the newspaper, the poor placement of the article and a complete lack of the World Wide Web meant that the historical leak went unnoticed. You can see it after the jump.